If you don't want to click the above link to read the whole article, the key point is summarized below in these two paragraphs:

For prepaid, the timing couldn’t be more prescient. As the rapid pace of industry growth over the past five years slows down somewhat, program managers and other providers are looking for ways to increase revenue from existing customers, in addition to acquiring new ones. Financial capability can be part of that answer, by driving customers toward behaviors that improve the provider’s bottom line and the consumer’s financial health at the same time.

Focusing on financial capability means focusing on what actually changes consumer behavior, not just consumer knowledge. So what would it look like for prepaid and financial capability to become a closer pair? According to the foundational research on this topic by the Center for Financial Services Innovation, providers seeking to successfully incorporate the financial capability framework need to ensure the content and tools they develop adhere to four key attributes. They must be: 1) relevant 2) timely, 3) actionable and 4) ongoing.

I spent the day today attending The Money Event in Las Vegas and spoke on a panel with Lynn Eisenhart, Senior Program Officer at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Financial Services for the Poor and Danny Shader, CEO PayNearMe. Our topic was mobile money and financial inclusion.

My take-away comment is that financial inclusion in the US is not about what type of mobile wallet consumers will use or the technical details of the encryption used to secure the transaction, but whether consumers can use the technology easily and reliably, whether there is a solution that works most of the time (e.g. consumers are not going to spend effort adopting a system that will only work at 10% of the merchants they frequent) and whether the system can be trusted.

Cash works, as Danny points out, because it meets these criteria. Existing forms of payment with a mag-stripe plastic card (such as a prepaid debit card) work, but are still confusing to many consumers (try paying for gas at a pump, finding in-network ATMs, or understanding the nuances of selecting credit vs. debit at the POS terminal).

Whatever mobile money solution/ecosystem/apps/etc is/are eventually adopted by the mainstream consumer segment in the US, it will have to be easy to use, have nearly ubiquitous acceptance, and be trusted. I know we will see some elegant solutions, including Apple Pay, which was announced yesterday, to enable mobile payments, but in my opinion we have a while to wait until we see a mobile money solution that drives financial inclusion in the US.

Last night, Arlyn, PayPerks CEO, joined the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPMC) for the launch of their new Financial Solutions Lab: a joint initiative to identify and enhance tech-enabled innovations that address consumer needs.